In this episode of the Full Throttle Leaders podcast, host Michael Falato interviews Gina Alioto, head of brand and marketing at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Gina explains that Shaker is a 75‑year‑old heritage recruitment marketing firm that offers a full suite of services—including employer branding, talent attraction, martech, and analytics—to clients ranging from Fortune 10/500 corporations to high‑volume startups across industries such as retail, healthcare, manufacturing, and travel. Rather than building proprietary technology, Shaker maintains an extensive partner ecosystem, vetting and matching the best recruitment‑tech solutions to client goals. The firm actively experiments with AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity to stay at the forefront of recruitment marketing innovation. Business development is driven primarily by relationship‑based referrals, bolstered by brand‑awareness initiatives such as digital and programmatic ads, search, and in‑person networking events. Gina outlines Shaker’s event strategy, citing recent appearances at Unleash, Talent Acquisition Week, RecFest, and regional conferences, and highlights the company’s Chicago headquarters, a largely virtual workforce, and a partnership with the global agency network One Agent. Prospective clients are encouraged to contact Christina Pickle, Joe Shaker, or Gina directly via LinkedIn or the company website. The conversation underscores Shaker’s emphasis on trusted relationships, technology curation, and continuous experimentation to help clients navigate the crowded HR‑tech landscape.
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Welcome everybody. Michael Falato here from Full Throttle Falato Leads. And this is my podcast, Full Throttle Leaders. And we got one of my favorite people, Gina Alioto, at Shaker Recruitment, right?
So Gina Alioto from Shaker Recruitment Marketing. And if you want to, you know, reshoot that one. Feel free to. Alioto.
Alioto. What did I say?
You said what everybody says. Alito. I think it's something about the I and the O that—
Alilito.
Or you can just say Gina. You can say Gina from Shake and It's Shakeria from the marketing.
It's Italian, right?
You know what? You're right. You're right. You can just say Gina from Shake.
Alilito. Alilito. Right?
Alioto.
Okay, I was gonna say Gina.
You could just say Gina. You can just be like, this is Gina from Shaker. Um, and don't worry, everybody does it, by the way. It's exactly what it looks like, Alioto, but no one can say it. That's it.
I just, I just phonetically— okay, Alioto.
Yeah.
All right, all right, here we go. 1, 2, 3. Hello everybody, Michael Falato back again for Full Throttle Leaders. As you know me as the CEO founder of Full Throttle, Full Throttle Leads. And we have Gina here today from Shaker Recruitment Marketing. She heads up brand and marketing. Hi Gina.
Hey Michael, great to see you.
So I used to work with Gina a while back at Syntec Talent. And so I ran into her again today and we wanted to talk about her journey, what she's been doing. So tell us a little bit about Shaker, what you do now, and then we could kind of get into your background.
Sure. So, um, I'm currently with Shaker Recruitment Marketing. I lead their brand and marketing for the B2B side of the business. Um, and Shaker is actually celebrating its 75th anniversary, so this is a heritage brand. They are an institution, um, not just in America but globally, and they value their relationships with their clients. Shaker prides itself on the relationships between its people at Shaker, clients, partners, and the collective impact on the industry. So that's, that's where I'm at today. My background is in consumer marketing and B2B and leading for global brands.
Tell us a little bit about what Shaker does.
So Shaker Recruitment Marketing helps brands with all of their employer branding, recruitment marketing, talent acquisition needs. And their primary services are branding, talent attraction, martech, and analytics. And they are the experts at how all of those pieces work cohesively together to help brands with all of their hiring needs.
And what's some type— what type of clients do you usually work with? And what, if you can mention any brand names, that'd be great.
Yeah, so we actually have some great case studies on our website. We work with all types of brands from global Fortune 10, Fortune 500 brands, all the way to companies that are doing high-volume hiring needs that might be more of in a startup capacity. So we work with all types of brands across all industries from retail, healthcare, manufacturing, travel and logistics. So really all types of hiring needs.
And do you, Shaker, build any of its own technology or do you recommend basically technology that, that you like out there and you're mostly a creative shop or tell us kind of where specifically where, why people hire Shaker?
Mm-hmm. So unlike a lot of the brands in the industry that we all know of who have built their own proprietary platforms and went into sell tech. Shaker is unique in that we don't sell our own proprietary technology. We use technology internally all the time and use multiple different platforms. We don't— we're not interested today in selling a proprietary technology. Instead, Shaker actually has the greatest Rolodex of technology partners that we will work with our clients to determine what their goals are and what the best tech setup is for them. So we will, we partner with all of the best tech on the, you know, in the, in the market. We'll evaluate what they do best and then match it up with how we can best service our clients based on what, what their goals and needs are.
And what, what type of marketing are you most interested in now for your brand? Are you doing some really cool things with a particular technology and AI or events? Like, what's— if you had to do a TEDx talk and you're like, this is kind of things that we're doing now and I feel good about this and we did some really good things in this space, but I don't want to do this other part again. It didn't work too well.
So maybe from some lessons of life in this part on the B2B side and the work that my team does for the Shaker brand, we are experimenting experimenting with all types of technology. I see the, the brand and marketing team almost as the guinea pigs of what the type of work that we could possibly do for our clients. We should be at the forefront and we are experimenting with all types of technology, including AI and all different types of platforms. So this way we can learn from it and provide those insights to our clients and the work that they're doing for recruitment marketing. So right now we experiment with everything from Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and seeing what's working, what's not working, and how we can apply that work to the recruitment marketing for our clients.
And what's the best way for you guys to get new clients? Are you using conferences? Are you using any type of outreach or automation? I know, I know Shaker's, you know, Joe's a great guy and he has a pretty good name in this space. So a lot of referrals, but that's right.
Yeah.
How do you do the cold to semi-warm outreach?
So you're absolutely right. Joe is one of the most genuine, kindhearted people that I've met, and everybody who meets him and knows him will say the same. And you're right, that is the number one way that Shaker has been operating for the past 75 years. They are a business built on relationships. So they do, they, they do the right thing by their clients. They deliver great work and the work speaks for itself and those relationships sustain over time. And then the referral is the strongest. And we know in marketing too, referrals are the strongest form of, of gaining new business.
Working for the colder outreach right now, are you doing any type of cold outreach?
Yeah, sure. So we, We prioritize our brand awareness because I believe in investing in a brand, especially a heritage brand like Shaker that has such a great reputation. I'm investing in amplifying that message so this way more people know about the great work that they are already doing. So investing in brand awareness, including digital ads, we both know that that landscape is shifting rapidly at the most rapid speed that I've ever seen it shift in the past 15, 20 years. And Digital marketing, yes, is still important, and I highly recommend that we continue with search, all types of search and programmatic ads, but also the in-person networking events is another way that we build those relationships, whether it's an industry conference or a Shaker proprietary event that we, you know, a lunch or a dinner that we produce.
What events are you— conference are you going to, your company or you, where they can meet Shaker in the next 6 to 12 months?
So the whole schedule is on our website, so everybody can go on there and see where you can meet us next. We go to all of the major industry conferences. We were just at Unleash last week. We were at Talent Acquisition Week earlier this year. We'll be at RecFest later in the year, and then we'll go to many of the regional events conferences, the Consaros, Susan Lamott, who is our head of employer branding, she, and she was a former CEO of Exactio, and then Shaker acquired Exactio. So now she leads that whole arm of our business. She was a speaker, a keynote at Consaro last week. So we go to all of the major industry conferences, and then some of the more regional conferences, especially where we have clients, and we want to meet with our clients and partners while we're in market. For sponsoring that event.
And if I remember correctly, it was— was it Missouri? Where's Shaker based out of?
Shaker is based in Chicago, and, um, that's where our global HQ is. And then I'd say maybe about 50% of our employee base are virtual workers all across the US. And then Shaker also has a very strong partnership with One Agent, which is this global network of creative and branding agencies. And so that, that partnership— and Joe was previously, um, uh, on, on the— he was chairman of one agent, and they do amazing work all over, all over the globe. And that's, that's through our agency partners.
And who should, uh, reach out to Shaker? What type of company, and who should they reach out to at your company? Is it you, or would it be someone like Christina Pickle that we both know, or what's, what's your, what's the best way to get a hold of Shaker?
You can definitely reach out to Christina Pickle. She's a rock star. You know, one of the things that is amazing about Shaker is that you could reach out to Joe Shaker and he will respond to you. It's something that I hear from clients all the time, how they appreciate that personal touch. You can reach out to me. I'd love for anybody to connect with me on LinkedIn. I answer all of my messages. And then you can take a look at our website. Shaker.com, click around, see if anything appeals to you. I'd say people that are interested in transforming their talent acquisition and employer branding operations, whether you are part of the employer branding team, the recruitment marketing team, or talent acquisition, Shaker is a great partner and can be a great advisor, especially with things changing so rapidly in digital marketing. It's impossible to do it all yourself. I mean, as a marketing leader, it's overwhelming. And having that agency partner can really help you cut through the noise and understand what's working currently in your setup and help advise you on what areas need work. Is it your employer brand? Is it your talent, talent attraction operation? Is it your marketing, your marketing technology setup? And do you need to sift through the thousands of marketing technology that's out there right now? What is right for you and what you're trying to achieve? Sifting through that alone, I think, is one of the greatest things that Shaker helps with because it's overwhelming and there's just more and more technology that's available. It'll be impossible for a marketing leader to sift through all of that. And worse, if you invest in something and then it doesn't work and then now you've wasted time and resources and budget on that, let Shaker do that for you because we already have vetted all of the best technology that's out there, and we, we do it regularly.
Yeah, HR tech space, SaaS space, AI space is crowded. But I appreciate your time, Gina. Thanks for making time. Good seeing you again. Take care.
